First Christmas

Sammer had his very first Christmas on Saturday. This time last year, he was still a pup in his mom's belly, preparing to be born, getting kicked in the head by eight other brothers and sisters. I'd say this Christmas was much improved for him.

Sam had been smelling his stocking all week and was a tad overeager when it was finally time to see what was inside it.

Stocking time!

Both boys got a toy and a rawhide pack in their stockings. Marcus' toy was a raccoon and Sam's was a skunk. The rawhides were from me and the toys were from Mom--if I had picked them I wouldn't have given Sam a black and white furry toy the same size as Marcus, because Sam already thinks Marcus is a toy half the time, and I'm sure this is only confusing him further.

 What's in there? Hurry up!

The one thing Sam did realize, though, was that his mouth is roughly four times as big as Marcus', and that meant he could keep his own toy and steal Marcus' raccoon at the same time. Sam wasted no time in acting on this discovery and was soon parading around the Christmas tree with both toys in his mouth while Marcus hovered at his heels, nipping futilely at the trailing tails.

Nyah nyah na boo boo!

Eventually we got the toys away from Sam by tempting him with his rawhide, and Marcus swooped in to grab his raccoon and spirit it away to his lair in the corner with the rest of his toy collection. (Marcus tends to guard his toys from Sam pretty vehemently, but Sam's so much bigger than him that he just takes them back without giving the snarling Marcus a second thought.)

Want.... rawhide... must.... have... NOW....

Gimme the rawhide already!

The boys settled down to chew their respective Christmas loot for the rest of the morning. The toys were de-squeaked in about two hours, and the only reason they lasted that long was because Sam was busy with his rawhide. Marcus' rawhides are gone now, and Sam's has been reduced in size by half and licked clean of all its beef flavor. All in all a good first Christmas for a pair of goofy doggers, don't you think?

One of Those Days

You know you're in for one of those days when you wake up and go to the kitchen to let the dogs out and find this waiting for you:

We didn't do it...

Hoppy Holidays

This morning I let the dogs out as usual, walked down to get the paper, then went about feeding and watering the two bottomless pits. (Well, Marcus is more of a bottomless divot; the only time Sam has ever turned down food has been when he's terrified of a baby gate.)

Halt, toad! Who goes there?

Today a new curiosity awaited the boys, however: a toad had taken up residence in their water dish. I pointed him out to Sam, who seemed thoroughly flummoxed by the intruder, while Marcus wasn't the least bit interested. Sam kept sniffing the toad as it swam feebly around the water dish; when that failed to produce any results, he started pawing at the ground around the dish. What his goal was with this, I have no idea, but it seemed to make him happy, and after a moment he was digging at the ground around the dish with glee while the toad watched balefully from the water.

Sam's digging for fossils

At this point, I scooped the toad out and tossed him into some nearby leaves, which thankfully stopped Sam's digging. He's already inexplicably begun a hole on the edge of the driveway, which he keeps digging up every time we fill it in, and one giant hole in the yard is quite enough. Sam sniffed after the toad in the leaves for awhile, then gave him up as a bad job and went to find a stick.

Sam Size

Sam got an early Christmas present last night. Dad got him a box of milkbones--but not just any box. A fourteen pound box.

And where did Dad find such a Sam-size box of milkbones? Where else... Sam's Club. Sams look out for each other, you know.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

School is officially over for me until January, so it's time to get back to blogging! I've been at work making the boys Christmas presents (Marcus' is done; Sam's is in the works), and I already embroidered some stockings to hang over the fireplace for them:

Happy Christmas!

Here's hoping Santa likes milkbones!

My Poor Foot Never Stood a Chance

Sam and Marcus really like the couch. By default, they also really like anyone and anything that's on the couch with them.

Sometimes this takes a violent turn.



It wasn't enough that I dropped the whole Christmas tree on my foot earlier this week, but now I've got two dogs fighting over who gets to chew on my foot first. I think steel-toed slippers are in order.

Couch Playhouse

With the temperature dropping, I've been utilizing the two best feet-warmers in the house--not socks, not blankets, but doggers. Sam takes up half the couch when he's on it, so he's usually good to lay on my legs and keep my lower body warm, while Marcus usually stretches out across my stomach or under my chin and keeps my upper body warm. And we all three get to share a nap on the couch. It's win-win-win!

Of course, these two don't just immediately settle down for a nap when you bring them out to the couch. No, first they have to play and wrestle and make use of the couch's playhouse properties. Sam will take the high ground, and Marcus will bark at him and sprint around the living room, then leap up and attack. Sam will drag him down, and they'll wrestle on the floor a bit, and play chase around the living room chairs, and then back to the couch. Today they discovered that they could both play tug with my sweatshirt sleeves while I was still in them, which was not fun for me. But eventually they tuckered out, and almost as though there were an unspoken signal, they both passed out at once.

We had a nice nap. They boys are outside now, and I'm trying to figure out how to stop my face and hair from smelling like Marcus-breath, which it currently does. And since Marcus has a bit of a respiratory infection, that is not a pretty smell. My feet smell like Sam, but since Sam got sprayed with sugar cookie grooming scent at puppy class last night, that just means my feet smell like cookies. Hooray!

Happy December!

It's the first day of December and the first chilly day of the season in Jacksonville. Sam went to the vet this afternoon to get his ears checked again (Sam's got major allergies that give him rashes/runny noses/itchy paws/goopy ears), and he's currently weighing in at a whopping 99.4 pounds. That means if he grows another half pound, he'll hit triple digits!

Speaking of which, I didn't get any responses for the weight guessing game, so I'll just guess on my own. I'm pretty sure this is one of those things where I think it's way more interesting than readers do. I'm guessing Sam will be somewhere around 103 pounds by January 9, and I think he'll end up in the 105-110 range once he stops growing. A respectable size for a rhino, I think.

Sam also went to week two of puppy school tonight, and did well as always. It's technically not puppy school anymore, since it's an advanced obedience class, but Sam's still a puppy so I'm calling it puppy school. At the beginning and end of class he got off-leash playtime with his classmate Cooper, a golden retriever, and Sam had a blast. You could definitely tell it was a relief for him to play with another dog that wouldn't break as easily as Marcus does if you step on him. Which Sam does. Often.

Speaking of Marcus, he spent a good ten minutes running up to where Sam was sitting with me on the couch, crouching down and barking, then taking off and sprinting around the living room, circling back to the couch, and repeating the entire process. Sam just cocked his head and stared at him as though thinking, "What on earth is this weird squirrel up to now?" Eventually Marcus got tired of trying to make Sam chase him and jumped up next to him on the couch--at which point Sam promptly sat on him, and Marcus was lost to the bowels of the couch until I could move Sam and pull up the cushion to save him.

No pictures today unfortunately--I know, posts with words instead of pictures are such a drag--but school will be over for me by this time next week and I promise to do some serious holiday blogging during winter break. After all, it'll be the boys' first Christmas! I made them stockings last week and they'll be hung over the fireplace this weekend for Santa to fill with rawhides and squeaky toys. Christmas is only 24 days away! Happy holidays!